P4 2.53 Gig machine enough to stream 720P

[2canSAM]

Right now I run multiple xboxes running XBMC to stream video content. I am only using an SD setup and I'm looking to upgrade all tvs in the house this year. I have read that the xbox is not powerful enough to handle hd content so those are not going to work out with the upgrade. I do have an IBM Netvista small form factor box that is a P4 2.53 machine with 1GB ram. It has Intel 845v graphics built in but I can upgrade the video with a PCI card. What do I need to do to have this box stream 720P content?

 

[WaitingForNehalem]

The CPU by itself will not be able to handle 720P but you can put in a video card that supports HD decoding and it will play just fine.

 

[2canSAM]

The CPU by itself will not be able to handle 720P but you can put in a video card that supports HD decoding and it will play just fine.

Any recommendations for a PCI card that will do it?

 

[WaitingForNehalem]

I get this 9400GT: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ImageG...20Video%20Card

Although I really think spending that much on a PCI 9400GT is not worth it. You should consider these:

http://www.frys-electronics-ads.com...210F-AMD-Athlon-II-X2-215-Dual-Core-Processor

http://www.frys-electronics-ads.com...I-X2-240-Processor-MSI-K9N6PGM-V2-Motherboard

 

[sdifox]

or just get the WD HD box 2.0

 

[Trader05]

or just get the WD HD box 2.0

2nd vote for this

 

[2canSAM]

2nd vote for this

Looked at these but I need Netflix streaming ability. Do any of these type devices offer that? So far I checked out the WD TV, Asus Oplay and Patriot Box Office. I was thinking PC for access to Netflix and Pandora and it could also be the DVD players for each room.

 

[bobdole369]

I can "almost" do 1080p h.264 on a p4 xeon 2.33ghz, 8500GT (AGP) via cuda accelled decoder (corecodec)

I say Almost, because it depends on the bitrate. 30GB BR rip is not gonna happen. compressed to about 5GB and its completely doable.

 

[Loop2kil]

I can "almost" do 1080p h.264 on a p4 xeon 2.33ghz, 8500GT (AGP) via cuda accelled decoder (corecodec)

I say Almost, because it depends on the bitrate. 30GB BR rip is not gonna happen. compressed to about 5GB and its completely doable.

Does that 8500 support hardware decoding of HD? You should be just fine with anything HD....my htpc has a lowly Sempron 1.8 ghz and an ATI3450....along with Media Player Classic Home Cinema, everything plays smooth as silk including BR content. Though I am not sure I have ever tried a full 30 gb BR rip.

 

[Loop2kil]

to the OP...this one should work just fine for your needs and play any HD content you could throw at it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814131325

 

[bobdole369]

Does that 8500 support hardware decoding of HD? You should be just fine with anything HD....my htpc has a lowly Sempron 1.8 ghz and an ATI3450....along with Media Player Classic Home Cinema, everything plays smooth as silk including BR content. Though I am not sure I have ever tried a full 30 gb BR rip.

Yup, its the only reason I can decode anything >720p on the box. Once dropped to a 5200 AGP it barely does VGA video.

 

[Modelworks]

Looked at these but I need Netflix streaming ability. Do any of these type devices offer that? So far I checked out the WD TV, Asus Oplay and Patriot Box Office. I was thinking PC for access to Netflix and Pandora and it could also be the DVD players for each room.

The WDTVLIVE boxes may have this in the future. They come with youtube, pandora, flickr support. Really the problem with netflix is they chose to go with MS silverlight for the playback instead of flash. The WDTVLIV boxes have been hacked and there is custom firmware available where people are tinkering to add more support, but nothing yet.

You can do netflix with the boxes using a streaming server off a pc. There is playon and tversity that can log into your netflix account and stream to the box over the network.
http://www.playon.tv/playon/
http://tversity.com/

 

[SpeedEng66]

Looked at these but I need Netflix streaming ability. Do any of these type devices offer that? So far I checked out the WD TV, Asus Oplay and Patriot Box Office. I was thinking PC for access to Netflix and Pandora and it could also be the DVD players for each room.

I also wanted netflix and pandora I ended up picking up a samsung bd1590 which streams that plus more

http://www.samsung.com/us/consumer/t...ype=prd_detail

I found it at walmart for 130